Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM - Review / Test Report
Lens Reviews - Canon EOS (APS-C)

Review by Klaus Schroiff, published October 2005

Special thanks to Andreas Thaler who has provided the lens for testing purposes!

Introduction

Released back in 1995 the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM is one of the few relatively new fix-focal in the lower focal length range that we've seen in the last years. Regarding its release date it is obviously a full frame lens. On APS-C DSLRs it has a field-of-view equivalent to a classic 45mm lens so it can be considered as a standard lens here. As such it competes with the Sigma AF 30mm f/1.4 EX HSM DC and to a lesser degree with its in-house mate, the EF 35mm f/2.

The optical construction is made of 10 elements in 9 groups with one aspherical element. Its minimum focus distance is 0.25m resulting in a max. object magnification of 1:5.5. The aperture mechanism has 7 aperture blades. The filter size is 58mm. It has a size of 74x56mm and despite its large aperture the weight is relatively moderate at only 310g. A petal-type hood is optional.

The lens is quite a beauty with a very solid construction thanks to very good quality plastics. The very broad, rubberized focus ring has a smooth action. The front element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem. The focusing speed is pretty fast and thanks to USM the AF noise level is near silent. Typical for ring-type USM drives full-time manual focusing is possible.



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